Thursday, February 10, 2011

I am...the snack police

The blog has been silent lately. February is the month I'm supposed to be smart with ...well, everything. I've been trying to spend less time writing and more time doing the mommy/housewife gig. Based on the disaster that is my house and the pile of laundry and the lack of writing, I don't think it's quite a win.

I've made a few changes around the house that aren't going so hot, like giving the kids more responsibility for their own laundry. For some reason, school uniforms are not being washed. I don't know if this is a subtle attempt on the part of the children to say ...undermine my efforts...or just their way of hoping if they don't have uniforms they don't have to go to school. I'm big on personal responsibility, so if they don't wash their clothes and don't mind smelling like a dirty gym sock, then....I don't care either.

(OK, I'm just going to keep telling myself that and maybe I'll actually believe it. Danger Girl has a knack for arriving at school filthy even though I send her clean. It's a massive embarrassment since she goes to the Stepford School for Over Achievers where all the girls have those massive head bows and if they didn't have uniforms, the would have monogrammed smocked dresses)

The Boy doesn't care about his laundry. We already knew that. He has his school uniform and his home uniform. The home uniform consists of plaid pants and his favorite shirt. He lets me wash the shirt once a week. That was our compromise. It must be washed and returned to his drawer for the next day. He'll be getting a duplicate of his favorite shirt for his birthday, though I suspect the original will still be preferred and somehow he will be able to tell the difference when no one else can. Autism ROCKS.

Leelee has discovered she can toss her uniforms in with the other laundry being done so she's never without clothes. It's undermining my efforts since she ends up wearing the same thing over and over. It's clean but her laundry is still out of control.

I am going to give this a full two weeks before I throw in the towel and go back to what we were doing before.

So far, my trying to be smarter with my time has been a complete and total FAIL and not just in laundry.

My goal was one day of grocery shopping. No other extra trips to the store. Period.

Despite my efforts to make a nice organized list, certain family members who shall not be named, fail to tell me of things needed for work and school until the last minute. This is everything from tissues to flash cards to money! I'm pulling my hair out. I get upset and look like the bad guy. They already refer to me as the snack police. Now, I'm the school supply police, too.

Maybe I just need to embrace this. Accept that I am a control freak when it comes to snacks and school supplies. I've taken to using my label maker to mark which snacks are allowed and how long they are supposed to last. That's normal, right?